Fade (22 page)

“So you don’t even care that you’re killing innocent people?”

He looked at her. “Those opposing us are making themselves useless deaths. Power is saving itself. You are the example. You are being powerful and can be used. There is only that. No hate or love from me.”

“You’re a sociopath. You know that, right?”

His eyes went back to the spit. He examined it for a moment and then lifted it, sliding a fish from it.

She started to go on, but knew she was getting too worked up. She went on anyway. “Okay, also, I don’t get why you’re the only one that looks like us. Did you join their side on the other Earth?”

He chuckled. “No. My ancestors were being chosen from among your people by Mira, our Queen. We are revered servants. Janar, we are called.”

Angela turned the carcass in her hands, decided it was clean of meat and tossed it into the fire. “So, you’re revered, but other people’s lives mean nothing to you? You just kill whoever you want?”

Kah’en cut his eyes at her. “Reverence is being a form of power. And I am not saying that everyone should be taking the actions that I have taken. Our world would be mad then. I must be doing what I have done to preserve us.”

“Kill mindlessly?”

“You fought back.” He held out a chunk of meat to her.

She snarled her lip at it, but took it anyway.

“We are not being without emotion. I am understanding the feeling of loss one has for one who was familiar, but your people’s idea of evil and good is…” He shrugged, “There is only power.”

“How is recognizing something as good or bad wrong?”

“Who says this?”

Angela shrugged. “God, I guess.”

“God. This is a character in a religion?”

“Yeah,” Angela said.

“Imagine that this god does not exist. In our world, we do not believe in such things mostly.”

“Well…” She shuffled around a bit, moving a pebble from beneath her leg. “I guess it still seems like the right thing to do.”

“I will grant that it is being…
what
?” He struggled for the phrase, “
Common sense
. It is being common sense that a people are being better off if there are rules they say are so. But not right or wrong. Just that chaos is not being…
productive
. It is each society that agrees on these rules.”

“I guess that makes sense.” She shook her head in sudden protest. “But what if
society
says killing a whole group of people you don’t like is okay? Isn’t that bad?”

“There you are being with your words again.” He smiled and a gust of sand bent them low for a moment, the grains seeming to aim for their eyes. He leaned in as the wind died down. “What is
bad
about that if the larger group is deciding it is agreeable?”

“You’re nuts and that’s evil, even if
everybody
agrees that it isn’t. Also, some people are crazy. They kill people for fun.” She thought,
like you
, but didn’t say it. “They steal stuff that isn’t theirs. They rape girls and stuff. Is that okay?”

“You do not listen. Besides, power is deciding such things.”

“What?” She stood, dusting the sand from her clothes with little effect.

“If I were doing such things, I would be punished in my home world. Not because I was bad, but because I was disrupting the agreement of peace in our clan. If our Ruler does such, he is being revered for his strength and authority.”

“That’s messed up.” She seethed at this as well as being more than a little sick of his crappy English.

“Because you are never considering it, child.”

“No, I’m pretty sure that’s messed up. It’s,
excuse me
, wrong!”

Kah’en smiled and took a bite of his food. “Eat and then rest. We leave tomorrow.”

“I don’t know. You might decide you’re hungry and think it’s okay to eat me.”

Kah’en smiled again. “Tonight I have fish.”

***

Jonas was numb. Cynthia walked in front of him, each step a promise. Somewhere, deep inside, he hurt for her. But it was too deep and he was too weak to dig for it. He knew they were getting close to Aern’s camp now, but his imagination had ran ahead and returned, reporting horror stories as to the condition in which he would find his daughter and Angela. He closed his eyes, his brow clenched.

The path they had been walking had faded and now the earth, soft and wet from the slow rain that had started a mile back, creating applause in the trees, squirmed under their feet. Mud crawled up their legs like a rash with each squishy step. This was the soundtrack the woods gave them for so long that they both stopped immediately when they came close enough to the noise of battle to hear.

Cynthia turned to him, her hair pasted to her head and face, which was pale and solemn. He was scowling at the sounds of fighting, and they picked up their pace. He could hear the resonant crunch as a tree broke over the screams of combat. The tangy aroma of pine filled his head as they drew closer. No outliers guarded the area. They all fought, it seemed. Against what, he wasn’t sure. Perhaps the Fade had revolted, even without Kah’en. He hoped.

He and Cynthia made their way up a steep incline, lowering themselves to the ground and digging their fingers into the mud, climbing forward until they reached its brim and could see into Aern’s camp. Jonas pushed the rain out of his eyes and peered into the moonlit area where he saw two, odd giants fighting Aern’s army. He squinted at the single, dim figure in the distance, moving in much the same way he had seen his own wife move when in control of her mindless puppets.

“Who is that?” Cynthia asked.

Jonas didn’t respond. She was about a foot shorter, her hair the color of aging straw, and her body the shape of a rail. But he knew it was her. It was Lucy. The Lucy he’d seen in her memories. He was glued there, watching, as what looked to be the last of the Wraith wailing through the air at her. He tensed to move, but Lucy barely regarded it before it jittered back into its solid, Fade form, exploding into fiery dust, unable to exist in that form any longer.

The two giants, with legs of pine and oak, hands of stone, dirt; its body cobbled out of the dead and dying Fade, did most of her fighting for Lucy. Aern was nowhere to be seen. He had, no doubt, run to a safe distance while his warriors sorted this mess out. The giants plucked the Fade from the ground, tossing them into the air and each other. He saw that a scattered few of them were wearing powered armor. Kah’en had been right. His chest tightened. But then something else caught his attention. He noticed that Lucy, as savagely as she was attacking them, was letting the Fade live. For a moment he wondered at that, then the horror that she was torturing them flooded him.

Over the roar of battle, for the first time, he noticed a faint giggle. A chill ran down his spine.

More than that, she was unready for power on this level. There was no doubt that she was far above average in her abilities, but her brain, her body, was unprepared for this kind of use. She had none of the months or even years of preparation necessary. He wasn’t even sure how she had accomplished this.

“Lucy’s going to kill herself,” he said, jumping up from where he lay next to Cynthia, the spell of what they were seeing broken. He called out her name. She and the giants turned as one, a few of the Fade dead sloughing off like old skin.

“I’m winning, Dad!”

Now the revulsion at what he had done began to dawn on him. She was the most innocent among them. Now, though, she killed as guiltlessly as if she were swatting flies. “You have to stop. You’re going to hurt yourself!” He noted the gash on her forehead, the large, dark red stain on her shirt and pants and began to panic even more.

She shook her head, an oak-rooted foot coming down in front of her, shaking the ground. “They can’t hurt me. They can’t.” Her smile looked like it might break loose from her face and flutter away.

Jonas reached Lucy’s side. It felt like the safest place in the world. He heard Cynthia’s screams and shuddered, jerking his head to see her now in the middle of the fight, wailing like a lost child as she began to battle.

“This is good, isn’t it?” Lucy said, then became more serious. “I’m getting them back. For what they did to you. For what they did to everyone.” He didn’t even think she realized that her teeth had begun to grind as she spoke, tears poking out of the corner of her eyes.

“No.” He trembled in frustration. “Listen. Your mind can’t handle this kind of—”

He watched her eyes roll behind their lids. Her mouth fell open as her muscles went lax and she began to fall. Like the puppets they were, the giant, corpse-ridden creatures she had built with her mind crumbled to a sick pile.

Everyone stopped. The thirty or so Fade that remained upright seemed unsure for that moment. Was this some calm before the storm? But the silence in which Jonas caught Lucy lasted just that moment.

At first, only one of the remaining Fade warriors rushed at her, his chest out in front of him, armor reflecting the now full-risen moon. Cynthia seemed to come from nowhere, stopping his rush like she were a bus and he were a cat. Then, others began to climb the debris and bodies of their own men to get at them.

Jonas laid her down and stood before Lucy, pulling up the submachine gun that hung at his side and let loose nine-millimeter noise. The bodies of the few Fade who didn’t have time to react rocked. Even their non-powered armor was strong enough to fend off the bullets, but Jonas knew that, and aimed high. With just a few of them having working electric blades and none of them with the pulse rifles they had been so fond of during the war, they all sought shelter.

He yelled for Cynthia to follow them as he gathered Lucy into his arms again and ran in the opposite direction of the army. He heard Aern’s coward voice behind him for the first time, saying they wouldn’t get far, but Jonas didn’t turn. Cynthia called back for him to go. He couldn’t bother arguing. She’d had the same look in her eye since seeing her friend dead as he did when he first believed Lucy to be the same. It was a look that meant she’d laid aside any fight left for her own life.

He knew this the moment they left her friend’s body, and he’d let her come anyway. No longer blinded by grief, he knew he couldn’t let her kill herself getting some empty revenge. He would get Lucy to safety, find out where Angela was, and then come back. It had all happened so fast. So much damn confusion and grief, but he should have known better than to come. He hated himself for putting them in this situation. But, if he hadn’t trusted Kah’en, would they have hidden? Or would he have put the girls in danger anyway? Would he have actually taken them back to his Earth, or been blind enough with wrath to think that one brain-dead soldier and three scared teenage girls with powers they had no idea how, or desire, to use would take on a whole army? Surely not. But hadn’t he come to fight them all with less?

Lucy mumbled that she was fine; that she could fight. Jonas squeezed her closer to his chest. “It’s over, baby.”

There was a smile in her jostled voice as they ran. “I did it for you. I saw what they did to everyone. In your head.” Her words were the mumbles of a person about to fall asleep.

As he ran, he realized this was because of him. This emotionally stunted little girl just wanted him. He had left her to the wolves. It was no wonder she acted like one. No, that wasn’t fair. She was acting like him and he knew it. Something had gone wrong when he was in her head. He knew that too. Like him, she had seen his darkness; the deep pangs of hunger for revenge he felt. Now she wanted to give her father what
he
wanted most.

“I don’t want this. And I want you to be you. I don’t want you to pretend to be someone you think is better. Just be Lucy.”

“I saw how hard you fought.” Jonas could feel the blood from her side wetting his chest. He would have to stop soon. “I felt how much you wanted them dead. Saw it too.” Her voice grew coarse, with a timbre like his. “They took me away from my Elizabeth. Killed my friends. You think they deserve to live?” Her words trailed off, she began to cough, and looked up at him again, seeming like she might pass out again. “I became somebody that was worth loving, Jonas. Don’t take that from me. Just let me make you forget you saw
this
me.” Her eyes fluttered and she went slack in his arms.

“No. I will love you no matter what, baby.” His voice was desperate, breathless. He fought the desire to shake her. He had so much to say to her, and he could feel the Fade all around them, ready to pounce, ready to take away his last chance to say those things.

***

After several more days, they came to a camp of thatched huts, no more than wattles, caked with sun-dried clay as white as bleached bone. Angela, wearing a large, browning frond she’d strapped to her head to keep off the blaze of the sun, stopped short of Kah’en. He slowed but continued on, giving Angela a brief glance that she wasn’t sure how to translate. A few of the aged villagers—who looked to have more in common with the Fade than either of them—gave them cursory glances, but none of the dozen or so seemed interested in their arrival.

Angela spotted a tub filled with water near the center of the small village and had to stop herself from running to it. It had been hours since they’d been near anything close to wet, and she was afraid she might pass out if she didn’t drink soon. Kah’en began speaking in his language to one of the men—tall, elderly, dragging what looked like a trot-line of large, brown frogs behind him. The old man held up the trail of frog-like animals, waved at one of the huts and they both disappeared inside. Angela wrapped her arms around herself and waited.

“
Tok tis dae
.” An aging woman, half-again taller than Angela, deep lines carved into her carbon, papuled skin, hobbled over to her. She hadn’t seen her coming and yapped when the woman spoke. The woman’s knobby fingers went to her hair and Angela stiffened. “
Tok tis dae. Pon han tis dae
.” Her words were a purr as she gently rubbed Angela’s hair between her spindly black fingers.

“Um,” Angela said, starting to reach out to push the woman’s hand away.